An introduction to the osteology of the Mammalia : being the substance of the course of lectures delivered at the Royal college of surgeons of England in 1870 / By William Henry Flower.

  • Flower, William Henry, 1831-1899.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introduction to the osteology of the Mammalia : being the substance of the course of lectures delivered at the Royal college of surgeons of England in 1870 / By William Henry Flower. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    SO ; the second and third nearly as long as the fifth, but excessively attenuated. There is no rudiment of a hallux. The ungual phalanges are conical, pointed, slightly curved above, and flattened on the under surface. The whole foot is much compressed laterally, especially at its hinder part, so that the proximal ends of the second and third are thrown behind that of the great fourth metatarsal, and entirely concealed in a view of the dorsal surface of the foot. The Tree-Kangaroos of New Guinea {Dendrolagus), which habitually live among the boughs of large trees, have the feet constructed on the same type, but shorter, and more laterally extended. In the leaf-eating, climbing Austra- lian Opossums {P/ialangista, Fig. 123) and Koalas {Phascolardos) the second and third toes are also very slender, but the fourth and fifth are more equal, especially in length, the foot is broad, and there is a strongly developed pre- hensile and opposable, though nail- less, hallux. The insect- and root-eating, ground- dwelling Bandicoots {PeramcUda) dif- fering in many other respects from the Kangaroos, have their hind-foot con- structed on exactly the same type as in Macropus, even to the relative length of the different digits, though there is often a rudiment of the metatarsal of the hallux. In one remarkable genus {CJmropiis), already men- tioned on account of the peculiar structure of the manus (see Fig. 104, p. 278), the same type is carried to a great extreme, Y 2 Fig. 124.— Rones of right foot of Chccrojtus casta- notis (nat. size.)